This invention relates generally to human limb bracing techniques, and more particularly concerns an athletic knee orthosis having uncommonly favorable characteristics.
The field of sports medicine has evolved in the past few years from a fledgling with basically no following into a growing, viable, integral part of orthopaedic surgery. In the past, little thought went into mechanism of injury, post injury rehabilitation, and return to active sports participation.
Within the last few years, major advances have been made in all of the above, including bracing techniques. For years the standard of post knee injury was an elastic knee cage. This evolved into the so-called Lennox-Hill brace and its modifications. While that brace was effective; because of its bulky nature it has not met the needs of many professional as well as "weekend" athletes. Also the Lennox-Hill type braces could not be worn with the type of garment necessary for this sports activity, and typically were left in the back seat of the car when the participant returned to his racing activity.